Glasgow super hospital coughs up £450k to kill pests after pigeon droppings crisis

Pest teams at the QEUH have had to shoot pigeons, install anti-bird spikes and netting and use chemicals to kill mould and fungus since January.

Health bosses at the hospital where patients died after catching an infection linked to pigeon droppings have spent almost £450,000 on pest control since it opened.

Pest teams at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow have had to shoot pigeons, install anti-bird spikes and netting and use chemicals to kill mould and fungus since January.

Combatting vermin at the £842 million hospital accounts for more than half of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s entire spend on pest control for all of its facilities in Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire.

It was revealed in January two patients, a 10-year-old boy and a 73-year-old woman, were being treated for the fungal infection cryptococcus before they died.

The cryptococcus fungus, which is found in pigeon droppings and soil, can cause infection when inhaled.

The organism is harmless to most people but can pose a risk to sick people with reduced immunity.

The infection was found to be a factor in the boy’s death but the pensioner died from an unrelated cause.

Other patients thought to be at risk were tested and two others tested positive for another fungal infection – mucor.

One of them, grandmother Mito Kaur, 63, died in March.

Since summer 2015, pest control firm GP Environmental made almost 2500 call outs to NHSGGC sites and were paid £850,000. Less than a fifth of the visits were to the new hospital.

The figures from a Freedom of Information request to NHSGGC has revealed the contractor was called out to the QEUH campus more than 420 times at a cost of over £448,000.

The pest control teams recorded visiting the campus in early December last year to deal with pigeon droppings in a 12th floor plant room and, in the four weeks that followed, cleaned 13 others.

An NHSGGC spokesman said: “We continuously and actively review pest prevention and control requirements through regular audits in all hospitals and premises.

“This significantly reduces pest issues.”

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